Politically Incorrect and Proud of It

We homeschoolers accept the fact that our practice is threatening, even offensive, to many people. Why? Because it's politically incorrect—it's anti-establishment, non¬conformist, even elitist. We are suspected and distrusted because we are questioners, thinkers, doers; we are self-motivated, innovative, creative and (worst of all) unpredictable. We are all those things that makes mainstream folks (especially school and other government employees) uncomfortable, uneasy, insecure and fearful.

We recognize that political correctness is often just a mask, a sham used by people hoping to appear ‘in the know’ and acceptable. It's role-playing. Much of today's PC-ness involves tolerance—no person or group is allowed to be offended; there is no right or wrong. While we know that respect for others is important, we also realize that tolerance does have limits. G.K. Chesterton wrote a sobering line: ‘If your highest virtue is tolerance, you have no others.’ I take that to mean, if you tolerate everything, you stand for nothing.

Well we DO stand for something—that's why we homeschool. We don't want our kids or ourselves to be molded by current political fashions. We observe public schools as mere indoctrination centers for the latest PC and recognize that they have actually eliminated their educational function. They have become the prison-like conditioning system that routinely abuses America's children with boredom and wasted time and drugging to control their behavior, while turning out generations of people dependent on government and other institutions.

We do not accept the idea that just because we are (still) forced to pay for the public schools, we should use them or even feel entitled to their ‘services.’ We know better—¬that the government will only teach what it wants us to know… very little. We know that being PC is often simply swallowing the latest lie, that mainstreamers are getting their morality from outside themselves. While homeschoolers seldom agree with each other, we don't blindly go along with the crowd.

Here in Connecticut, we obey an enlightened law, one that assumes we are taking responsibility for ourselves and our families. It was written long before schooling was ever conceived of as a government function. It was written by people who could not imagine that we would not want to take that responsibility. Fortunately, the law has not changed here. We need no one’s permission to homeschool, and we need not answer to anyone about our practice. We do not sacrifice our children to the whims and agendas of a corrupt political arena. We have taken our liberty of it.

We are politically incorrect. Hooray for us.

Ned Vare